This pink beauty  is painted by the famous 19th century Dutch flower painter Margaretha Roosenboom. Margaretha Roosenboom was born in Voorburg as the daughter of Nicolaas Johannes Roosenboom and Maria Schelfhout, the daughter of Andreas Schelfhout.. She was a pupil of her father in Brussels where she grew up, and in 1867 she returned to The Hague to learn watercolor painting from her grandfather Andreas Schelfhout. She was a child prodigy who showed her work at Pulchri Studio at the age of 16 though she only became a member there in 1878. She sent her work to foreign exhibitions and won prizes at the World’s Fair Vienna in 1873, the Chicago World Exposition in 1893, and the World’s Fair Atlanta in 1895.

Roosenboom preferred painting flowers in their most natural state, arranged in vases or casually put down in a bunch on a forest ground or stone plinth. Often roses formed the centrepiece of her paintings and watercolors always depicted in warm tones and her distinctive use of colour.

A contemporary of hers wrote: “Vermeer had his own blue….Rembrandt his golden color spectrum, Margaretha Roosenboom her subtle distinctions, shining like pink pearls”